.jpg) | |
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Born | Pyotr Arsenyevich Romanovsky (1892-07-29)29 July 1892 |
| Died | 1 March 1964(1964-03-01) (aged 71) |
| Chess career | |
| Title | International Master (1950) |
Pyotr Arsenyevich Romanovsky (Russian:Пётр Арсеньевич Романо́вский; 29 July 1892 – 1 March 1964) was a Russian and Sovietchess player and author. He won the Soviet Championship in 1923 and, jointly, 1927.
At the beginning of his career in Saint Petersburg, he shared fourth place in 1908 (Sergey von Freymann andKarl Wilhelm Rosenkrantz won), tied for 10–11th in 1909 (Alexander Alekhine won), took second place behind Smorodsky in 1913, and shared first with von Freymann in 1914 (Hexagonal).[1]
Romanovsky participated in theMannheim 1914 chess tournament (the 19thDSB Congress), begun on 20 July and stopped on 1 August, whenWorld War I broke out.[2] He was tied for second–fourth places in theHauptturnier B event. After the declaration of war by the German Empire on the Russian Empire, eleven Russian players (Alekhine,Bogoljubow,Bohatyrchuk,Flamberg, Koppelman,Maliutin,Rabinovich, Romanovsky,Saburov,Selezniev,Vainshtein) were interned inRastatt, Germany. On September 14, 17, and 29, 1914, four of them (Alekhine, Bohatyrchuk, Saburov, and Koppelman) were freed and allowed to return home via Switzerland.[3] As an internee, he played in three tournaments. In 1914, he tied for fourth/fifth inBaden-Baden, as Flamberg won. He took third in theTriberg chess tournament 1914/15, and tied for fifth/sixth at Triberg 1915 (both won by Bogoljubow).[4] After being released from internment by theRed Cross in spring 1915, due to his poor health (heart illness), he returned toPetrograd. When Romanovsky returned to Russia, he immediately helped raise money to aid the Russian chess players who were still interned in Germany by giving asimultaneous exhibition at theSaint Petersburg Polytechnical Institute.[5]
After the war, he took second, behind Alekhine, at Moscow 1920 (thefirst USSR Chess Championship). He was theSoviet Champion in 1923 (second USSR-ch in Petrograd) and 1927 (withFedir Bohatyrchuk, fifthUSSR Chess Championship, in Moscow). He tied for first withGrigory Levenfish,Alexander Ilyin-Genevsky andIlya Rabinovich in the 1925Leningrad City Chess Championship.[6] In December 1925, he tied for seventh/eighth in theMoscow 1925 chess tournament. In 1927, he won in Leningrad. His best international result was in Leningrad 1934, finishing tied for second place withNikolai Riumin, behindMikhail Botvinnik.[7] In 1934, he was the first Soviet chess player to be awardedHonoured Master of Sport.
During the worst period of theSiege of Leningrad in winter of 1941–42, a rescue party reached his home. They found Romanovsky half-conscious from starvation and cold. The rest of his family had frozen to death. All the furniture in the house had been used for firewood. A chess manuscript which had been in preparation by Romanovsky was also lost at this time.
Upon his recovery, Romanovsky found strength to live on, started a new family and continued to work tirelessly to promote chess and train chess players.
FIDE awarded him theInternational Master title in 1950 and theInternational Arbiter title in 1951.
In 1954, the Soviets withdrew their application for Romanovsky to receive theGrandmaster title, which had been based on his first place in the 1927 USSR championship. But because anti-StalinistFedir Bohatyrchuk had shared the title in 1927, and he was no longer recognized in the USSR as the result of his having defected, the USSR Chess Federation did not want to give the GM title to Bohatyrchuk, so they withdrew the application for Romanovsky as well.
Before his death, Romanovsky published two books onchess middlegames, which were translated into English in 1990:Chess Middlegames: Combinations, andChess Middlegames: Strategy, both published by American Chess Promotions. In 2013Quality Chess published both volumes together asSoviet Middlegame Technique.
